Jo Butterfield joins our Board

Saturday 12th March 2016

Jo Butterfield – brings new perspectives to the Board (photo by Sue Gyford)

scottishathletics are delighted to announce a new addition to our board – World champion Para athlete, Jo Butterfield.

Jo is a full-time athlete, an F51-classified international seated thrower (club and discus), and member of Forth Valley Flyers Athletic Club. She is also a former Civil Servant, having worked with the MOD.

With a vacancy on the scottishathletics board, we’re pleased Jo accepted an invitation to become more involved in the governance of the sport in Scotland – supplying additional perspective from both her high-performance and Para athlete roles.

In 2011, Jo was left paralysed after a spinal cord injury and turned to sport initially for rehab – and soon discovered it offered so much more. Having only been competing in athletics since 2014, Jo is current IPC European Champion (Swansea 2014), World Champion (Doha 2015) F51 club thrower and a World Champion bronze medallist in the F52 Discus (Doha 2015).

She has already attended her first meeting, at the Emirates Arena on the day of the Glasgow Grand Prix, but will miss the next one later this month because she is headed for Rio on a pre-Paralympics fact-finding trip!

Ian Beattie – pleased to welcome Jo

‘We are absolutely delighted to welcome Jo Butterfield as a new Board member, said Ian Beattie, chairman of scottishathletics.

‘Jo, of course, will be very well-known to many in athletics in Scotland and beyond as a current IPC World Champion – indeed a double medallist. I think we can safely say she now has her eyes very firmly set on the Rio Paralympics.

‘Her experiences as a Para athlete (including wheelchair rugby), and her career experiences with the Ministry of Defence will bring great input to the Board.

We look forward to welcoming her to meetings, and her contributions, in due course.’

All the details on the various individuals on our board is out-lined on the About section of the site

The current board now includes the four Convenors of our Commissions: Moira Maguire (Track and Field); John Rodger (Road Running and Cross Country); Hugh Buchanan (Hill Running); Margaret Brown (Officials Commission).

Tags: Doha, Ian Beattie, IPC World Champs, Jo Butterfield, scotitshathletics Board